Lake Griffin State Park Campground

PROS
Dark sky friendly-no street lights in campground
100% gravel site
Metal fire ring with cooking grate
Moveable wood and metal picnic table
2 hook lantern pole
Security gate that closed at dusk with code provided for entrance
Some privacy from neighbors
Coin washer/dryer at the campground bathhouse
3 bars T-MOBILE

CONS
No senior or military discount
No campground WIFI
Site 11 very unlevel
Gravel roads to and thru campground
Tight campground road
Horrible traffic noise from US 441

I travelled here with a 35’ 5th wheel, long bed pickup and parked in the site #16, an E/W, BI site for $18/night. The road and sites were gravel and packed sand. The road was showing some erosion and weather impact so it was a bit bumpy in places. To back into the site required backing in uphill, not my favorite kind of entrance. I needed one board to get level. It was plenty long for the rig, truck and a visitor’s car. Sites are generally smaller and closer together than many state parks. The dump station is set up right in the access road for some of the sites, #15-19. If someone was emptying their tanks you would either have to wait, drive through an empty PT site next to it, or back up the road and around a curve. Very odd. Most of the sites have partial to full shade. #16 is mostly open to the sun. It is also very close to site 15. Not my preferred spacing. The bathhouse was clean, I didn’t use the showers. It was a bit of a walk from my site. Lots of OTA channels, no wifi, 2 bars 5G with Verizon. If I were to go back, I would try to book sites 36 or 37.

Decent park with lots of stuff to do. If only there was someone at the kayaks to purchase a rental. Or anyone at the boat tours to do one. Seemed to be no one available for anything including the amphitheater. So all we could do was hike while we were there. All the hiking can be done in a matter of two hours. It's a very small park, the pics don't do it justice to show how small it really is. It's very close to houses and developers you can hear ambulances all night long and traffic from the street. Sorry I feel like these are important when you are a paying rv'er and expectations when you are an avid camper knowing how state parks must be ran. Location location location. Very upsetting. Especially when driving hours to find it is in the middle of traffic.

The park is pretty small and I think your overall experience could be very different depending on the campsite you have. We had a full hookup site that was really large and felt pretty private compared to some of the others. There’re only maybe 5 or 6? fhu sites and the rest are water and electric. The campground definitely was a bit rowdy on the weekend, but was very quiet during the week. There’s a pretty busy highway just outside of the park and we did hear road noise, but it wasn’t overly loud or bothersome.

There is a total of about 2 miles of hiking in the park and you can launch your own or rent a kayak from the ranger station to get on the water. We really enjoyed the short hiking options, especially the skinny boardwalk over the swampy areas. While kayaking, we saw a ton of birds and gators. We would definitely come back to this park, but we would try to find some activities in the area in addition to what’s offered in the park since the park is pretty small.

Laundry is available at the bath house and the campground is conveniently located close to town for any shopping you’d need. We filled our propane tanks at Ace Hardware just a couple minutes away and loved having Earth Fare ten minutes up the road.

Biggest bonus for us- cell service was fantastic for remote work on both Verizon (49Mbps download and 5Mbps upload) and AT&T (74Mbps download and 6Mbps upload).

Pros:
Small and not crowded
Great kayaking
Nice boat launch and boat dock
Saw baby gators, Barred owls, Red shouldered hawks
Nice picnic areas and playground
Mammoth oak tree
Short but scenic nature walk (you can do about 2 miles)
Clean bath house
Shady campsites (not all but most are shady)
Very friendly rangers and camp host

Cons:
There’s really only one. You’re right off a busy 8-lame highway so there’s lots of road noise and an unbelievable amount of siren action.

Our arrival at Lake Griffin State Park was greeted by a friendly and helpful park ranger. We quickly found our way to our pull-through site and were able to quickly hook-up since it was level and easily accessible. The overall campground is fairly small and all sites are a close walk to the bathhouse. The bathhouse had laundry facilities and hot showers. Overall, the campground is very well maintained; park staff and hosts were constantly on the move. There was a lot of tree coverage for shade. A few sites had concrete pads and sewer hookups, but most of the sites had neither. Verizon cell coverage was strong and we were able to do our online work quite well. There was also a well-kept recreation park, a boat launch, and a couple trails. The park itself is in town, so there are plenty of stores and supplies close by.

Unfortunately there are a few negatives that couldn't be overlooked. It was deer fly season and they were out in force, especially in the evening. One could not sit outside without being attacked, even with repellent and fans. Also the sites are said to be gravel but most were just powdery sand. When combined with any movement, the sand covers everything, inside and out. The roads and sites could all use a decent layer of gravel to help tame the sand. Yes this is Florida, and some of it is to be expected. However this wasn't beach sand, it is somewhat dirty and powdery. The last issue was some campers who were said to be homeless, got drunk, and started yelling at each other in the middle of the night. All other campers were friendly and quiet, but the homeless folks spoiled the atmosphere.

Our experience was a 3-star, but the campground has the potential to be a 5-star, therefore I'm splitting the difference with a 4. If you visit in spring or early summer, be prepared for the biting deer flies.

Stopped here to check it out, and thankful for our site. There's quite a variety here - some nicely private, and others more tightly packed. Site 5 - and all of the sites in that area, were quite private feeling and lush with vegetation.

That park itself doesn't offer too terribly much, especially if you don't have a boat to get out on the lake itself. There's a couple of short trails right near the campground, and the 1.5 mile-ish one was simply gorgeous and had some fun boardwalks to traverse the marsh.

It was however hard to close our fitness rings here (our Apple Watches rule our lives). Glad we only booked two nights, as even with a lot of rain, we just didn't find enough at the park to keep our attention. We enjoyed our site quite a bit.

Great cell signal on all the carriers.

This campground was conveniently located reletive to Bushnell National Cemetary, and Dade Battlefield State Park, and turned out to be a gem. It is close to historic Leesburg, and has hiking trails, as well as fishing. Our site was a back-in with P&W with room for our toad. There is also a 300++ year old oak which is good for a pic or two. If you coming from the west, crossing the highway may be dicey to enter the CG.

I really loved this campground! Has a short hiking trail, which was good for walking dog. Campsites were different sizes. We stayed in #31 which was small, but ok with us as we had a teardrop and a van. All sites were close enough to the bathrooms, which were always clean. They had 4 showers - very hot water - campsites were full and bathrooms were never crowded. Easy check-in and after hours gate access. Kayak rentals available with water access within the park. Orlando within one hour.